


Here With Me

by halotolerant



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Depression, Hair Washing, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Violent Thoughts, post-surgical depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The little candles illuminating the bathroom are there because the power’s out. The scent of expensive perfume is because Hannibal can’t wash properly with the bandages still covering his healing wounds – or that’s what they’re saying, not that he won’t even begin to try - and his body odour has gone high and thick, past musk and into something rougher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norfolkdumpling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norfolkdumpling/gifts).



> For **norfolkdumpling** who was poorly, and when I offered a fic requested 'hair-washing/grooming' and then, I'm afraid, got this rather un-fluffy outcome. But was very sweet about it  <3 I will write you another one m'dear!

If you didn’t know any better, they could be something out of one of the racier coffee commercials, or some HBO drama that works in a nude scene around the exposition.

 

Will settles himself on the cork-topped stool placed by the head of the bath, and looks down over the man lying waiting, shirtless, in the dry tub, hair fanned out.

 

The little candles illuminating the bathroom are there because the power’s out. The scent of expensive perfume is because Hannibal can’t wash properly with the bandages still covering his healing wounds – or that’s what they’re saying, not that he won’t even begin to try - and his body odour has gone high and thick, past musk and into something rougher.

 

That’s why Will’s here, like this, because if nothing else they can do Hannibal’s ever-lengthening, ever-greasier hair; get it cut and washed.

 

That was how they talked about it. Indirectly. Passively.

 

Like Will wasn’t suggesting it because Hannibal’s apparently lost interest in maintaining himself – apparently, unless this is a long game, or a double-bluff Will has yet to divine, or a test.

 

Any of that would be better than that it is what it seems.

 

Will clears his throat and reaches to bring the enamel basin of hot soapy water to his lap, drawing Hannibal’s long hair over and into it.

 

Two months since they emerged from the dark water like primeval creatures forcing forward evolution, and Will hasn’t achieved very much else. He didn’t die, and neither did Hannibal, and they moved from one hiding place to the next until they got here, this poky apartment in New York, swallowed into the city.

 

It took a long time for Hannibal to clear the fever that came with his wound, but in the weeks since he’s improved, Will’s been waiting for him to do something, say something like he did on the bluff, to make a move, to tell Will what they do next, how they live with this, with each other.

 

But all they do is sit around - reading, staring into space, arguing about food on the few occasions Hannibal deigns to speak to Will, or to do anything in particular, be in any way present. Hannibal doesn’t seem to care to cook, but he’s never satisfied with what Will makes either.

 

Will can only assume it was being so wounded that brought Hannibal low, into something Will would bet would be diagnosed as Depression, if Hannibal Lecter could ever be defined or confined within traditional psychiatry.

 

That said, Will is starting to wonder, again, if he himself is wanted here, beyond his utility, and there’s no Bedelia on hand to ask.

 

Perhaps Bedelia would be handling this differently.

 

Will sighs, runs his fingers through the strands of Hannibal’s long, silky, grey-brown hair. Hannibal looks different with it framing his face – softer, somehow, in some angles, and then in others more like some sort of ancient warrior. Implacable. Unknowable.

 

Getting Hannibal’s appearance back to the standard he always – even in the BSHCI – kept up to, has to be some sort of help, surely?

 

Will’s fingers run upwards and over Hannibal’s temples, and Hannibal sighs deeply, shifts a little over the dry porcelain of the bath. Since Hannibal can’t safely be immersed in water yet, the bath might seem an illogical place even for this washing, but given how things have been Will’s more than expecting the bowl to be pushed angrily aside and water to go everywhere, and better that here than in the bedroom.

 

The bathroom is glossily tiled in green and white, and the candles flicker in multiple warping reflections all around them. Will takes a moment to look up at the ceiling as he keeps massaging in the cheap shampoo that will make them smell more like each other, and studies the familiar brown stain in the top right corner which he will stare at when he lies in the tub himself, wondering when he started to fall, and when he might stop.

 

He gets the shampoo into Hannibal’s hairline, over his brow, and draws back through the strands to their split ends.

 

He could wind the whole of Hannibal’s hair round his hand and just tug. Hard. Slam the base of Hannibal’s skull into the bath edge.

 

Would that get a reaction? Hannibal teeth-bared and ready for blood?

 

Will sighs. Then he wrings the hair out into the bowl and shifts the stool back, getting up to go to the sink and empty the water and replace it with clean. They’ve got hot water despite the power outage, which is something, perhaps.

 

Taking his place again, Will cups his hands to make them a vessel for pouring water softly down the hair, to wash the suds away.

 

Hannibal groans. Just a small sound, but Will tenses to it, and bites his lip.

 

He reaches for the toothmug on the basin, and uses it to pour more hot water from the bowl, in greater volume, right onto where the bone sutures must lie in Hannibal’s skull.

 

Are there forts in the bone arenas of Hannibal’s skull, behind which he waits?

 

Is Hannibal still in there?

 

Will squeezes the great twist of hair again, and reaches for the scissors.

 

He’s going to start cutting, pull the hair taut and slice it roughly, and he’s looking down and thinking about that when his wrist is grabbed.

 

For a moment it doesn’t hurt, and then it does, Hannibal’s hand crushing his wrist like a vice, forcing him to drop the scissors.

 

Will gasps, and then again, and slides forward, despite the pain, so he can see Hannibal’s face.

 

Dark eyes glint back at him, frowning.

 

“Do you want to kill me?” Hannibal asks, voice rough but interrogatory, insistent and sincere in the question.

 

“Do you want me to kill you?”

 

Hannibal creases his face and stands up, ungainly in the bath, dragging Will up with him. The muscles in his arms and chest flex as he moves. He must have lost some strength, being so inactive these past weeks, but Will would not have guessed so from how it feels.

 

“You never dreamed of this,” Hannibal states.

 

So many things Will could say to that.

 

Instead, he ducks away, eyes watering in the pain as he breaks Hannibal’s grip on him, and lunges for the scissors where they lie on the floor.

 

“If it takes holding a blade to you,” Will says, panting, upright again, “I’ll bleed you dry to get you back.”

 

Hannibal blinks at him, climbs purposefully out of the tub. He looks like something _dangerous_ and Will’s stomach turns over, his heart skittering in his chest.

 

“I need you, Hannibal.”

 

Hannibal’s lip curls.

 

“If it took cutting out my heart and handing it over to you, I’d do that too.” Will spreads his arms wide, offering himself. “You’ve ruined me, broken me, raised me up, birthed me and savaged me and all but taken me, and I’m stuck with you now.”

 

“You made me fall in love with you!” Hannibal takes a step forward, crashes one fist against the wall. It leaves a hairline crack in the tile. “You think you haven’t broken me?”

 

“You think I don’t want you broken into a hundred million pieces?” Will shouts, and then can only gasp, huffing out his breath, as Hannibal pounces, slams him into the bathroom door. Will’s head cracks back, aching at the strike of the wood – the tile might have knocked him out.

 

Lightning-like, the sensation that races through him then, and Will meets Hannibal’s mouth with his own, with his teeth. His arms go up around Hannibal’s shoulders and he drags him close. Hannibal’s hair is wet and cold and the cleanest part of him; Will rubs into his stinking clothing and fairly snarls, clings and breathes him.

 

When Will’s lips are sore and bleeding a little into their mouths, and the metallic edge mixes with the raw taste of Hannibal’s unbrushed teeth and both of them are panting, Hannibal draws back, rests his forehead on Will’s, and Will can feel as he shakes his head a little.

 

“What I did to you, and now I do nothing to you, or for you, and still…” Hannibal murmurs.

 

Will remembers a freezing stable, the stink of dead horse and blood, and being looked at as if he were the most splendid act in creation, for all he felt himself fouler than the air trapped under mud.

 

“We’re here together.” Will murmurs. “And I’m glad of the company.”

 

He kisses Hannibal again, slow, long and aimless and worshipful, until the candles gutter and the room is dark, and they are one body in the darkness.

 

 

 


End file.
